BACKGROUND: With the spread of COVID-19 and the worsening global prevention and control situation, the risk of infection faced by health workers has been unprecedented. It is necessary to fully understand the occupational risks of health workers to protect them and reduce their risk of infection. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to obtain comprehensive and detailed information on occupational risk factors of infectious diseases for HWs in different dimensions and to propose control strategies for three risk dimensions to protect HWs who are at high risk of infection during the pandemic. METHODS: A total number of 619 articles published from 2010 to 2021 were searched to conduct bibliometric analysis, which were retrieved in the Web of Science database with defined search terms. There were 26 articles met the criteria, and they were screened to identify occupational risk factors. RESULTS: We conducted an analysis of cited institutions, co-citation network analysis of journals, and references from bibliometric analysis. Nine risk factors were extracted, and they were classified and sorted into three dimensions. Infection control strategies for each dimension were proposed. CONCLUSIONS: The risk of infection faced by HWs is unprecedented. Medical institutions should pay more attention to the nine risk factors that we identified and use the three risk dimensions to carry out risk identification and infection control to reduce the infection risk of HWs and protect them better.

BACKGROUND: Medication administration errors by nurses form a high proportion of medical errors in medical institutions. Studies have shown that such errors are closely linked to nursing workload. OBJECTIVE: To quantitatively explore the effects of different types of nursing workloads on different medication administration errors. METHOD: Three medical institutions were selected as the objects of error data collection based on the following criteria: the medical institution experience in error data collection, the complete range of medical departments, and the institution size. Error cases were self-reported from all nurses in all medical departments. The relationship between the error types and nursing workload types were quantitatively examined using partial least squares and structural equation modeling. RESULTS: The study recorded 290 medication administration errors, and extracted four error types and nine nursing workload types. The workload type for each error type was also identified and the path coefficient was found to be between 0.087 to 0.416. CONCLUSION: This study confirmed the effect of workload on medication administration errors and determined a theoretical mechanism for this effect. Research results will provide the evidence for nursing managers to reduce workload and ensure quality in the nursing administration process.

BACKGROUND: The continuous spread of COVID-19 globally has led to busier medical practices and nurses are having to provide medical services to patients while suffering from high levels of fatigue. OBJECTIVE: This study experimentally investigated the influence of different levels of personal protection equipment (PPE) on nurses’ physical fatigue. METHODS: We collected data from 12 participants by simulating a series of nursing tasks. The participants wore one of three different protection levels of PPE, and data recording their heart rate (HR), oral temperature, task completion time, and subjective fatigue were collected. Following this, relationship models between subjective fatigue and objective fatigue indices was established using multiple linear regression analysis. RESULTS: By analyzing the variation trends of single indices of HR, oral temperature, task completion time, and subjective fatigue, it was found that the higher the level of protection levels of PPE worn by the participants, the higher the degree of fatigue experienced by them. In addition, taking subjective fatigue variation as the dependent variable and objective fatigue indices as independent variables, relationship models of the three different protection levels of PPE were established. CONCLUSIONS: The results confirmed the influence of different protection levels of PPE on nurses’ physical fatigue levels. They also provide a basis for medical administrators to monitor the degree of fatigue experienced by nurses, attempt to arrange nurses’ work content accordingly, and schedule suitably to combat and manage recorded increases in fatigue.

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